


closing in closer to you (this could take all night)

by wellavellan



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Enchanted (2007), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Pre-Relationship, we’ve all seen the movie right we all know where it goes from here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 02:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15620784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellavellan/pseuds/wellavellan
Summary: There is a girl standing on the decorative archway of a sex shop in one of Paris’s less desirable arrondissements, wearing a wedding gown in the pouring rain at midnight.God, Éponine hates closing shifts.





	closing in closer to you (this could take all night)

**Author's Note:**

> _enchanted_ (2007), eposette style
> 
> title from “cliff’s edge” by hayley kiyoko

Éponine has a closing shift tonight, because some deity has it out for her and decided her Monday somehow wasn’t horrible enough after eight hours of class and the on-and-off thunderstorms that started around lunchtime. She manages to pick Azelma and Gavroche up from school and make it to the Corinthe with five minutes to spare, settling them into the corner table with instructions to just stay there and get their homework done, _I mean it, Gav, if your teacher calls one more time to say you forgot your vocab assignment—_

“We’ve _got it_ ,” Azelma says. “God. We’ve done this before.”

“I know,” Éponine says, deflating a little as she ties on her apron. “Help Gav with his math if he needs it, will you?”

Azelma groans and drops her head into her arms. Éponine feels bad—she does, because it has to suck, getting dragged to the same coffee shop over and over instead of doing whatever normal fifteen-year-olds do on weeknights (Éponine wouldn’t know, but if movies are to be believed, it involves hanging out at pizza places and/or sports practice). She apologizes to Azelma exactly three times, but only three, because that’s about where her energy runs out, and besides, she has actual customers to attend to.

(She does bring both of them a hot chocolate around 9, though, because it’s started to pour again outside and there’s a chill each time the front door opens.)

Gavroche is fast asleep by the time Éponine has scrubbed the counters and powered down the cappuccino machines. Azelma gathers her things wordlessly while Éponine grabs her own backpack and picks up Gavroche, carrying him to the side exit.

It’s still raining. Her free hand hesitates as she reaches for her keys, ready to lock up. God, they should really take the métro, but Gav seems heavier than usual (which is _good_ , Eponine tells herself, it’s good, it means he’s not as goddamn malnourished as he was six months ago when Éponine finally tracked down her parents’ newest scam identities and bundled a silent Azelma and a too-light Gavroche into Courfeyrac’s car at 3 a.m.) but the station is three and a half blocks away and Éponine is so, so tired.

She hesitates one more time at the door, trying to mentally calculate what the Uber fare would be. She still has six days until her next paycheck and she has to get Gav a new coat before the custody hearing on Friday. So she really, really should—

“’Ponine,” Azelma says, like they’re kids again. Like she rarely ever does now. “Can we just—go.” 

Éponine calls an Uber.

The driver doesn’t exactly look thrilled to see their soaking wet trio of sleeping child, sullen teenager, and exhausted university student, but Éponine ran out of fucks to give about two hours ago, so. (She does feel kind of bad about the water they’re getting all over the backseat, though. Maybe she should apologize, say something that indicates she isn’t just taking the warmth of the car for granted—she’s not, like, some asshole who takes Ubers all the time and doesn’t notice her own muddy footprints—but she’s preoccupied with trying to buckle Gav’s seatbelt as the car pulls away from the curb, and also she doesn’t exactly know how to say, _Sorry about the mud and stuff, but it’s okay because I’m poor as shit._ )

They make it about a block before the driver slams on the breaks at a yellow light, cursing. Éponine tumbles forward, biting back her own curse as she jams her shoulder against the back of the passenger seat. She still hasn’t gotten Gav’s belt on, and he jerks awake, blinking.

“Where are we going?” he demands.

“Home,” Éponine says quickly.

He sits up, expression half-wild as he peers out the window. “ _Home?_ ”

“No,” Éponine says, “no, no, my home, not that home. My home.” Then, to the driver: “Hey, dude, I’m sorry, but could you cool your fucking jets? There are kids back here who aren’t buckled.”

“I don’t control the stoplights,” the driver says.

Éponine physically bites her tongue and yanks her backpack up from where it fell between the seats. Gavroche is staring out the window, his face still edged with panic. Éponine looks away. “Zel, you okay?”

“Um,” Azelma says. She’s frowning at something behind Éponine.

Gav tugs at Éponine’s arm. “Ép.”

“Gav, I promise, we’re going to my apartment.” She fumbles to find the other half of Gav’s seatbelt, still wedged between the cushions somewhere. She wouldn’t put it past the driver to floor it the moment the light turns green again. “I had a late shift and you fell asleep, everything’s—”

“ _Ép_ ,” Gav says again. “There’s someone out there.”

Éponine jerks her head up so hard her neck twinges, which, fuck, that’s gonna hurt tomorrow. She scans the street as best she can through the rain-splattered windows, but she doesn’t see anyone. There aren’t even any headlights lined up behind them.

“No one’s there,” she says, trying to sound calm and reassured and not like her heart is beating in her fucking throat. “No one’s on the street with us. Now please hold still so I can—”

“Not on the street,” Gav insists. “She’s up _there_.”

He points up through the window, diagonal to somewhere Éponine can’t see.

“Gav, please—”

“He’s right,” Azelma says, and Éponine glances at her, frowning, which turns out to be a big mistake. Because Gavroche has always been way too good at running away from shit, so the door’s open and he’s out of his seat before Éponine can even start to say, _Right about what?_

“ _Gav_ ,” she yells, whipping back around, and ow, her _fucking neck_. “Stay here,” she says, either to Azelma or the driver or both. And then she’s throwing her backpack over her shoulder and shoving out the car door too, some deeply-ingrained survival tactic telling her _danger, fuck, grab your things and grab Gav and Azelma and—_

The cold rain hits her face, and one of her boots immediately sinks into the brown water churning toward the gutter. “Gav!” she yells again.

He’s two storefronts down the street, standing at the edge of a streetlamp’s ring of light and craning his neck to look up at something. Éponine reaches him, trying not to skid on the wet concrete, and grabs his elbow. “What are you _doing_ , you can’t just run off, this isn’t like—”

“Hello?” someone says, and Éponine freezes, because the voice comes from _above them_.

Her brain finally overtakes her panic enough to take in where they are. That is, Éponine knows where they are geographically—it’s one block over from the Corinthe, she walks by here every day—but as she holds up her hand to shield her eyes from the rain, she realizes Gav has stopped right in front of The Secret Garden. Which is _definitely_ an adult toy store, and it has this archway that’s meant to tastefully cover the front of the building, which Éponine has always found a bit gaudy during the day and absolutely creepy at night. It’s threaded with a shitload of plastic flowers and those weird neon tube lights, creating a very mixed aesthetic that doesn’t translate well in the dark.

And there’s a girl standing on the top.

Éponine blinks, hard, and the girl’s still there when she opens her eyes. The girl is somehow balancing on the archway’s metal frame, and she’s wearing an honest-to-god _gown_. A white gown. A wedding gown. 

There is a girl standing on the decorative archway of a sex shop in one of Paris’s less desirable arrondissements, wearing a wedding gown in the pouring rain at midnight.

God, Éponine hates closing shifts.

The girl peers down at them, her face moving into the light of the streetlamp. She looks about the same age as Éponine, maybe a bit younger. Like she might be a university student, when she’s not hanging out on sex shop architecture. “Hello?” the girl calls again. “Hi. So sorry to bother you, but are you a witch?”

“What,” Éponine says.

“Because,” the girl continues, “this archway seems to be broken, and I could really use a witch to help fix it right now. It won’t send me anywhere, no matter which way I try to climb through it.”

“Are you calling my sister a witch?” Gav says, sounding half-indignant and half-gleeful.

The girl cocks her head. In the bizarre neon glow, Éponine can see that she’s kind of ridiculously beautiful, even with mud ringing the skirt of her giant cupcake wedding dress and her waterlogged hair plastered around her face. Her hair brushes her shoulders, dark enough that it nearly blends in with the night, and her eyes are wide and dark as well. Her lips are painted—Éponine isn’t sure what color, in this light and at this distance—and in her hair there’s a—

Crown?

Éponine doesn’t usually have time to make fun of straight people nonsense, but, uh, she files this one away to properly ridicule later. Because, a princess wedding, good _fucking_ grief.

“Where’s your husband?” she calls. If the wedding is nearby, maybe someone will come looking soon, and Éponine won’t have to deal with this anymore.

“Well, I don’t know, and that’s really the problem.” The princess/bride/seriously drunk girl puts her hands on her hips. “I was on my way to my wedding, and then I ended up—here.”

“Did you, uh, happen to stop at a bar on your way to your wedding?” Éponine asks.

“A bar?”

“Yeah.” When the girl frowns, Éponine sighs. “Look, just, how much have you had to drink? Should I be calling an ambulance?”

“I haven’t had a thing to drink,” the girl says. “Well, the bees brought me some dewdrops and nectar before I left, but that’s it.”

“What,” Éponine says, again.

The girl sighs with enough force that Éponine can hear it over the rain, which is kind of impressive. “Look, if you’re not a witch, could you maybe go and find one for me? Or, perhaps you could point me to the nearest carriage shop? I’m already late to my wedding, and I feel terrible for keeping Marius waiting.”

“How about you come down from there, and then we’ll give him a call?” Éponine says. It occurs to her that she should probably have called 911 already, whether or not the girl is blackout drunk.

“A call?”

“Yeah. Surely you know, um, Marius’s number?”

“His number,” the girl repeats. “You mean his age? He’s twenty and one summers.”

Okay, she is taking her wedding theme _far_ too seriously. God, maybe she got left at the altar and this is her coping mechanism. “No, I mean—okay, listen, what’s your name?”

The girl brightens. “I’m Cosette.”

“Okay. Cosette. Do you live around here? Do you have family nearby?”

The girl—Cosette—shakes her head. “I’ve never been here before. I grew up in the Whispering Meadows, and Papa and I lived in the Forest of Mayhem for a time—”

“Can you cut the fucking princess shtick?” Éponine snaps, and rolls her eyes when Gav giggles beside her.

“I’m not a princess yet,” Cosette informs her, and she sounds a bit vexed. “I haven’t married my prince. Which is why I need to go through this magical archway, so I can reunite with my true love and live happily ever after.”

_Jesus fucking Christ._

“Listen, your not-highness, or whatever,” Éponine says through her teeth, “I’m giving you, like, ten seconds to get down from there before I call the police. Okay? Because I’m tired and now I’m soaking wet, and my textbooks are probably soaking wet in my backpack, so I’m not gonna be able to study for my Roman Civ test on Friday and then I’ll probably flunk out of university and have to get a third job and move me and my siblings in with my friend and his boyfriend who stays up all night making protest signs, so I’ll also never sleep again, all because you decided to have a total break from reality the night I had a closing shift.”

“You don’t want that,” Gav tells Cosette, who looks kind of stunned. “Ép gets _really_ cranky when she doesn’t sleep.”

“Well, I’m not coming down,” Cosette says. “Not unless you know a better way to get back to royal palace.”

“I’m counting,” Éponine warns, using the same tone she uses when Azelma and Gav aren’t ready for school. “Ten. Nine. Eight. Sev—”

A lightning bolt streaks across the sky, washing everything in a split-second of white light. For a moment, Éponine can see how wide Cosette’s eyes are. How her gaze is locked directly on Éponine.

Thunder follows almost immediately. Gav jolts in Éponine’s grip, and, up on the arch, Cosette flinches as well. Which is bad, because she’s already precariously balanced. Her arms fly out, trying to right herself, but it’s a lost cause.

“Oh, no,” Éponine murmurs.

“Oh _no_ ,” Gavroche says. Éponine watches as Cosette tips forward, as if in slow motion, seeming to hang on the edge of the arch for a second—

“ _Éponine_ ,” Gav yells, and Éponine throws herself forward, getting under Cosette right as Cosette slips entirely. She tumbles off the arch with a cry, her giant skirt billowing out as she drops toward Éponine, and—

She slams into Éponine’s arms, sending both of them crashing to the asphalt. And _fuck_ , that hurts. Éponine doesn’t move for a second, the wind entirely knocked out of her, an _entire girl in an entire wedding dress_ sprawled across her chest.

“Ép,” someone is saying. It’s Gav, looming above her, and Éponine blinks as Azelma comes into focus as well.

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Azelma says. “Oh my god? ’Ponine? Say something, oh my god.”

Éponine raises a hand to shove something—tulle, muddy, pearl-studded tulle—out of her mouth so she can suck in big, gulping breaths. “I’m all right,” she rasps. Cosette stirs at that, and Éponine pushes herself up onto her elbows, staring down at her.

“Are you okay?” Éponine demands. “Are you injured? Did you hit your head?”

Cosette blinks, wiping a hand across her eyes before rolling to the side and sitting up. “That—,” she starts. “That doesn’t usually hurt as much.”

“What doesn’t? Falling off fucking buildings? _Fuck_ ,” Éponine says, wincing. Her backpack broke most of her own fall, but one of the books definitely left a bruise on her ribs.

“Getting caught,” Cosette says. She rubs her elbow, frowning.

“Jesus,” Éponine says. “Sorry for not _catching you better_. Wow.”

“No, no.” Cosette leans in, expression suddenly earnest—and suddenly two inches from Éponine’s face. Éponine can count the raindrops clinging to her eyelashes, and suddenly it’s hard to breathe for an entirely different reason. “Thank you,” Cosette says.

“I,” Éponine says. “Uh.”

There’s another crack of thunder. Cosette looks up toward the sky, and Éponine takes a deep breath (and definitely does not think about how she can see rivulets of rainwater running across Cosette’s collarbone, not at _all_ ). She turns to look at Gav and Azelma—both okay, both whole and alive—and then down the block, where the Uber has…disappeared.

Éponine staggers to her feet, swearing under her breath (even though trying not to curse in front of her siblings is pretty much a lost cause, at this point). She pulls out her phone, hunching over to try to shield it from the rain as she pulls up the app again.

Beside her Cosette stands as well, gingerly, wrapping her arms around herself. For the first time, Éponine realizes Cosette isn’t wearing a jacket. She must be freezing, but she stands tall, not letting the wind and rain buffet her.

_How many passengers?_ the Uber app asks.

Éponine hesitates. Looks up. Cosette’s watching her, gaze steady. And suddenly Éponine knows, bone-deep, that Cosette isn’t drunk, or high, or heartbroken. Whatever’s going on here, Éponine has a feeling she doesn’t fully grasp it yet—but she does know that if she leaves Cosette here in the rain, something far worse might happen to her than some mud and bruised limbs.

“Listen,” Éponine says. “Just—come with us. For one night. Until we figure out how to…get you back to the palace.”

She holds out her free hand, intending to beckon Cosette closer so she can herd all of them to the nearest awning. But when she does, Cosette reaches out and catches her hand, tangling her fingers with Éponine’s.

“That would be wonderful,” Cosette says, beaming, and it’s like the goddamn sun has come out at midnight in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. Éponine’s mouth goes dry, looking at that smile.

Her last thought, before turning back to the Uber app—her hand still intertwined with Cosette’s—is that, in this moment, Cosette really does look like a princess.

**Author's Note:**

> and then there’s some singing and some dragon-slaying and some true-love’s-kissing and they all live happily ever after
> 
>  
> 
> ~~(and maybe after it all goes down courfeyrac offers his couch to a slightly-bummed marius and one thing leads to another and courfeyrac is idina menzel)~~
> 
>  
> 
> i’m [@wellavellan](http://wellavellan.tumblr.com) over on tumblr!


End file.
